Hillside celebrated its 50th Anniversary year. As we’ve taken the time to look back and reflect on the incredible story God has been writing in our church over the past five decades, there’s been a real sense that truly with God “all things are possible”. From the coming together of three rural churches, modelling what has become known as “the Spirit of ‘74”, to the many bold steps, risks, and sacrifices Hillsiders have taken in subsequent eras along the way, what has been accomplished is truly beyond what could have ever been imagined. The growth, impacts, and countless changed lives are a powerful testimony to what happens when God’s people act in faith and trust Him for greater things.  Inspired by this history of bold faith, it’s now our opportunity some 50 years later to be part of an even greater legacy in 2024. As our theme verse says, “Without faith it is impossible to please God” (Hebrews 11:6). Ultimately, as we pursue the impossible, our desire is to please and honour God by seeking to be faithful as a church for the next 50 years and beyond – all for His glory!

Beyond this, here’s the latest. The excavation work is well underway and we’re on target to have this aspect of the work completed, as planned, later in fall 2024. This is a big win, as it will immediately “Expand Access” to the ministries and message of hope we have as we increase our parking capacity, while providing a much-needed private driveway at the rear of our property with secured access onto Oak Ridge Drive. This entrance will be gated and only opened for church services or special events.

Please remember that this aspect of the work costs approximately $400,000, which will need to be added to our existing mortgage because we don’t have the funds to do this urgently needed work. The total cost to complete the parking project, which includes the paving, will be close to $1M. We are required to complete the paving sometime in the next year. Many have asked about how they can contribute to this cost, and we certainly appreciate this! Here’s how:

Our church has always proactively invested in key ministry priorities and thankfully, God has, in turn, always blessed. Over the years, this has included strategically investing in children, youth and family ministries; worship; care; technology; and growth groups. We believe the same will be happen this time, as we generously invest in this fast-growing area of our ministry with newcomers to Canada. What a blessing it’s been to welcome so many people representing over more than 45 countries who are, moving into our area, and finding a home among our Hillside family! We’ve quickly become a multi-cultural church in recent years. Amazing! By investing in this new full-time position, we believe it’s a very important next step in connecting with more newcomers in our city, finding ways to bless and engage them, and further enhancing what it means to be a multi-cultural church. We know there’s still much more for us to learn in this regard.

We are very pleased to report that God has led our leadership to someone who has accepted a calling to this position. Stay tuned! Our new Director of Multicultural Engagement will be introduced to our church on Oct. 27th as part of our “International Sunday”. Then, the new Director will officially begin on Jan. 5th, 2025.

As a warm friendly growing church with a strong invitational culture, an urgent need exists to address our over-crowded lobby. Now, more than ever, providing spaces for meaningful connection with others especially in our lonely, fragmented world matters. Unfortunately, our lobby is simply too small and too limiting to accommodate our current reality let alone our vision to better connect, resource, and engage our growing Hillside family. It should also be noted that we live in Canada not in California or Florida where its much warmer and conducive for people to mingle and chat outdoors in a courtyard many months of the year. We simply don’t have that luxury here with our colder climate where it’s snows and can be colder at least 6 months of the year. To address this lid, we have an exciting vision to significantly expand our lobby and see this space become the “Hub of Community Life” at Hillside.

Frankly, our current space is a lid to current and future ministry possibilities. In fact, it’s an area people are often avoiding after services because of the overcrowding. This is so unfortunate! It’s also a very limiting factor when offering special events like conferences, banquets, larger Sundays at Christmas and Easter, VBS, Walk with Jesus, and a host of other opportunities when more spacious centralized space in the lobby would be so helpful. A larger, thoughtfully designed lobby would result in the following:

Ultimately, lobby space is not simply a place for people to connect. It’s a space that through its ambiance, furnishings, signage, and overall vibe, communicates what’s unique about Hillside’s culture. As a welcoming, seven day per week church that has a heart for people and strengthening community, this is an essential next step for us.

Looking back, some who remember Hillside’s “2020 Vision” will recall that once the new auditorium was completed and opened in March 2016, there was a plan to expand the lobby sometime after. Unfortunately, the global pandemic significantly slowed us down for almost three years. However, now is the time to complete what is unfinished. Creating this new space is still incredibly relevant to our church’s culture and vision as a welcoming place where more and more people are calling Hillside home.

For the past 50 years, Hillside has continued to find ways to make room for more. By increasing our parking lot and lobby space, plus balancing our two services this Fall, we’re taking some very intentional steps to keep our ministry moving forward. So, if we’re committed to keep making room for more, why not consider expanding the auditorium? That’s a great question!

The answer is that yes, we’ve certainly considered it; however, we have concluded, for several important reasons, that our current auditorium size (capacity 600 people) is truly an ideal size for our context. The room size has a warmth and welcome to it; it’s an engaging place for speakers and for worship. Plus, it’s a multi-purpose facility, which means the room can be flipped for special events, conferences, and banquets. The bottom line is this: our current auditorium is truly serving us well, is an ideal size, and the cost to expand it would be fairly exorbitant and not the best use of our financial resources. The vision going forward, therefore, would be NOT to expand the auditorium but, instead, to eventually add more service times, as the Lord so leads and the need demands. This decision means we avoid taking on the very significant financial cost of further expansion to this area of our facility. Adding a third service requires us to think outside the box and never lose our missional heart to reach out to others who matter to God and should matter to us.

Once we’re ready to announce the start date for the 3rd service (likely in late 2025/early 2026), we will seek to inspire a missional group of 150 Hillsiders who will partner with our staff for 1 year. This missional group will be the faithful attendees and core volunteers who will help us succeed in solidifying this new service to reach, bless, and disciple more people in our city. The vision for adding a 3rd identical service would be to provide the same experience as well as full programming from Birth-Grade 12, ensuring the new service is appealing for people to attend.

As we know, it takes teamwork to make the dreamwork. The service time for the new service hasn’t been determined yet. However, it’s anticipated that it will be on Sunday not Saturday. The criteria for determining the service time are that it’s ideally an optimal time that will grow and also be sustainable for our staff and volunteers.

Adding a new service provides more opportunities for people to serve and get involved; and it also provides another opportunity to reach more people. Similar to our existing two services, we will be looking to enlist volunteers for guest services, worship, production, children’s and youth ministries for the third service.

Big picture, we can see the day when we could be offering three or four services. This concept may seem new and different but, as in the past, we need to be willing to innovate and think outside the box. We’re living at a time when providing more options is appealing in reaching out to more people in our 24/7 economy. Also, through our research and connections with other church leaders, there are many wonderful examples of churches in North America who are having great success with this approach.

Maybe, but not as an immediate priority. We have a strong conviction that God is calling us to focus on being good stewards of what has already been entrusted to us and maximizing the current property by further developing our main site first; then, multi-site later. Why? Because we are living in the fastest growing ward in the one of the fastest growing cities in Canada. We have tremendous opportunities right around us, so let’s not get distracted from what God is powerfully favouring. However, having said that, multi-site is certainly something our leadership is very open to and will be prayerfully exploring in the years ahead. It’s something we’ve been discussing and researching and will continue to do so. We’re very aware that going multi-site isn’t easy and, in fact, it takes a lot of time, attention, and resources to do it well. If and when we’re ready to pursue it, we want to make sure that we launch to succeed not struggle and fail. So, choosing the right timing and ensuring it’s adequately resourced will be key factors as we prayerfully look to the future.

Yes, absolutely! A genuine vision to bless others beyond our walls isn’t simply our previous vision, it’s become a vital part of who we are and who we’re still striving to be. Soon after launching our previous Beyond our Walls (BOWs) vision in 2019, the pandemic took place. This understandably resulted in many pivots and adjustments to our vision. Thankfully, we navigated this very challenging season and still managed to move forward on several key objectives within the BOWs vision. However, in many ways we’re still just getting started.

Big picture, we will continue to keep building upon the solid foundation of the 3 pillars in the BOWs vision. We will never stop being a church who is FOR families, FOR community, and FOR the world around us.

Looking ahead, therefore, we plan to continually invest in and further enhance these 3 objectives in practical visionary ways. This is all part of the “Elevated Possibilities” as we Pursue the Impossible together and prepare for more ministry than ever before.

FOR Families: realizing the tremendous challenges and pressures on families today, we are more determined than ever to be a church that “fights for families” (Neh. 4:14). This means providing more tools, events, and resources, including mental health resources, that will intentionally build stronger marriages and equip parents and grandparents; deepening our commitment through expanded strategies, resources, and opportunities to raise up the next generation of children, youth, and young adults who will truly know and serve the Lord.

FOR Community: realizing the epidemic of loneliness and growing isolation in our culture, we will seek to deepen our authentic sense of community and relational connectedness with others. This makes sense because ‘here, we’re all family’ and Jesus said “your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples” (John 13:35). Therefore, in addition to building an expanded lobby and food services which will become a “Hub of Community Life” and investing in a growing and expanded ministry with internationals, we will be providing more Nights of Worship, more discipleship and Growth Group training, Alpha courses, special events, and an ever-deepening culture of prayer as ways to deepen our sense of community while also intentionally growing stronger followers of Jesus.

FOR the World: now that our Love Moncton team and our new global partnership in El Salvador have been established, we will continue to build upon these growing initiatives to strengthen our missional partnerships locally and globally. Going forward, we envision annual mission trips, annual Global Kids Sundays, bi-annual missionally focused Sundays, increased serve opportunities locally, and an allocation of at least 10% (a tithe) of our annual budget to bless beyond our walls. Also, we are committed to giving 10% (a tithe) of our upcoming Generosity Initiative to bless our missional partners both locally and globally. The first 50K of this 10% tithe will be designated to provide a much-needed 24 seat passenger vehicle to bless our partners in El Salvador. This is a top strategic need for them that’s been on their wish list for many years and wouldn’t be attainable without our generosity. Beyond these missional commitments, we will continue to bolster our use of technology (leveraging our online broadcast and other digital strategies) to further expand the kingdom by sharing the good news and making disciples in our region and beyond.

Finally, as a people of generosity, it’s important to realize that there’s a significant amount of funds that are given by Hillsiders every year that’s not included within our budget yet represents a sizable amount of generosity. The point? We are a very generous church – more than people often realize. This includes gifts given to local and global partners through individuals as well as our various ladies groups and growth groups; special offerings to invest in students serving at Christian camps every summer; money raised for mission trips; annual Christmas sponsorship; meals through our Care team; hosting the annual Teen Challenge banquets; the hundreds of global kids that are sponsored; plus, so much more! It’s our desire to continually deepen our culture of generosity as God so leads in the years ahead. As Jesus said, “To whom much is given, much is required” (Luke 12:48).

As we Pursue The Impossible in the days ahead, each of the four steps presented will require financial resources and commitment.  We can take as many steps and do so as fast as the Lord provides resources and funds through you, the Legacy ‘24 family here at Hillside.

First, you can identify as part of the Legacy 2024 family and begin to pray that in God’s perfect timing, His people will release the required resources needed for each step.  You can pray about your part in the Generosity initiative being introduced next year, and even begin giving now by designating your donation to the “Building Fund” or the “Pursue the Impossible” fund.

In the same way as we often identify the founding members of Hillside as the “Spirit of ‘74” from our beginning in 1974, we have an opportunity to mark a new day in our church’s continued movement forward into a new day. As we celebrated 50 years and looked at all that has happened in this anniversary year, we acknowledged that God is not done!  As we enter into the next 50 years, we cannot become part of that ’74 group, but we will boldly “Pursue The Impossible” in this new day as a body of believers who can now begin to identify as the Legacy ‘24 family.  We believe we will someday look back on this “Impossible” vision and be able to look at one another and know that God used us to be part of this new day, even as those who are part of the Spirit of ’74 were used to get us to this day.